


Briefly, Gorgeous

by Tavina



Category: Naruto
Genre: Early Konoha, F/M, The Intimacy of Brushing/Braiding/Washing Another Person's Hair, conversational
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 07:28:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28881729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tavina/pseuds/Tavina
Summary: Because habit is fond.
Relationships: Uchiha Madara/Uzumaki Mito
Comments: 4
Kudos: 29
Collections: Bulletproof 20/21





	Briefly, Gorgeous

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FictionPenned](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FictionPenned/gifts).



“Sometimes being offered tenderness feels like the very proof that you’ve been ruined.”

— Ocean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

* * *

For as long as they’d been together — some rough months that may well be closing in on a year if he stops to think of it — he has not mentioned marriage to Mito.

And she, for her part, had never much bothered to ask him about it.

In brief moments, he wonders if she cares, or if there is anyone who expects her to make more of an effort. Then again, he does not think that Mito would let anyone dictate her choices in that regard.

But it is one moment, after spring had come and gone — when the others of her delegation had come and gone, returning to Uzu in twos and threes now that Konoha stands little danger of burning down — that he realizes she has not left.

He pauses, his hands still in her hair, a loop wrapped around a hair stick that might’ve been a bun before he got distracted and his fingers had done something else instead. “Your cousins left weeks ago,” he remarks and feels a bit stupid.

“I suppose they have.” Her face in the mirror seems amused.

“When are you leaving?”

She turns to him, hair tumbling out of whatever hairstyle he had been attempting earlier, and cups his face with her hands. “So eager to get rid of me, Madara?”

He’d intended to ask her how long she intended to stay, not imply that she must leave.

“That’s not what I meant.” He leans over to retrieve the hairstick from the floor and the comb from her vanity. “On second thought, I think I need to brush your hair again before I attempt trying to style it. It’s gotten messy.”

And if she laughs, it’s no bad thing.

He leaves his attention for brushing through it all again, taking up the hairstick and looping each tress about it.

Her hair is red like freshly spilled blood, but it retains the softness of silk and the beauty of flowers, heavy when it is all done up.

Briefly, he wishes he could keep this moment for longer.

“How do I look?” she asks when he’s done, her eyes shut, as she asks every morning since they started this ritual.

He smiles as he considers it.

“Gorgeous.”

* * *

“What did I know

thinking myself

able to go

alone all the way.”

— Robert Creeley, “Love Comes Quietly”

**Author's Note:**

> I had fun writing! <3


End file.
